With the new emphasis on learning outcomes, tribal colleges have an opportunity to redefine their own measures of success, along with their own curricular and pedagogical values and approaches, in more culturally appropriate ways. Articulating or refining the tribal college’s mission is often a critical first step in this process. This report highlights that by using their mission statements to set and guide standards of measuring success, tribal colleges can use assessment programs to pursue their missions; build local capacity; and advance processes of self-empowerment, self-determination and the decolonization of Native peoples.